Friday 9th August
It’s been a good day today, we have travelled about 7 miles from Lower Lode to Upton Upon Severn. The weather has been lovely and we managed to get a mooring. We left Lower Lode at about 8-30 am and went through the huge Upper Lode Lock on our own. We are now on the non tidal River Severn as the weir at Upper Lode is the usual highest point to which Spring tides reach.
On the way to Upton we met the Hotel Boat Edward Elgar coming towards us and just before the M50 bridge there was gravel barge Elver turning before mooring at the gravel works to load up. We were at one point over taken by a small speed boat going much faster than the limit!
We arrived at Upton upon Severn in 2 hours and managed to get a mooring on the pontoon just through the bridge. When we got here there was a narrow boat on the outside of the pontoon with 2 tupperwares so we went on the inside of the pontoon and another narrow boat moored in front of us soon after. The outside narrow boat then left and a yoghurt pot turned up to get petrol from the garage nearby. There is now a Dutch barge with a narrow boat breasted up to it, another narrow boat and the 2 tupperwares (now breasted up) on the outside pontoon. There was another narrow boat breasted up this afternoon but they have since moved on. As you can see it is busy here.
We went off to have a walk round the town and a very nice town it is too with a pepperpot clock tower and a lovely church. We lost count of the number of pubs and decided if we had a drink in all of them we would forget we even had a boat let alone where it was! After getting some milk and a paper we settled for The Swan Hotel on the riverside but the beer wasn’t the best and it was a bit pricey so after one we went to The Olde Anchor which is a lovely pub opposite the clock tower and does a superb pint of Spitfire.
We returned to the boat and spent the rest of the afternoon lazing about (as you do). Tomorrow we are going to Worcester where we will spend the weekend. We have tickets booked for the one day cricket match between Worcestershire and Kent on Sunday. We’re lucky because this is one of the few years the cricket pitch hasn’t been under water for most of the Summer!
